Haven’t written anything in ages. Just had something I wanted to say.
Been watching the news for the past few nights with my mum, and reading BBC almost everyday, but I only really felt tonight the impact of the typhoon that hit Taiwan last weekend. I keep hearing and reading about rising death tolls, mudslides burying houses, watching rescue workers ferrying people to safety etc, and the newscasters’ voices usually just go in one ear and out the other. It sounds really heartless, I know, but it just didn’t strike me as being particularly serious because, you know, there was the Boxing Day tsunami which did so much more damage.
Then I watched the Ch U news just now, like WATCHED the news. Rescue workers were being carried away by the rushing waters, and this guy died even though they managed to save him and take him to a hospital. I can’t really remember much, they were trying to squeeze too much information into too short a period of time. Anyway, the scene changed and this rescue worker was being interviewed in Hsiaolin, which is probably the worst hit place because of the mudslide, and there was just nothing in the background anymore. He was talking about how there used to be a road and houses along both sides of the road, but it was really quite difficult picturing the scene he was describing. I could only see brown in his background, which looked like a riverbed with all the water gone. The devastation is such that I can’t even begin to imagine what the place used to look like as a village.
That’s the not the worst bit, though, I think. The scene changes again and it became some gritty footage of this man struggling through alot of mud and I heard the newscaster saying something about him trying to look for his parents, and then the guy suddenly just fell to his knees and started weeping. It’s damn freaking sad lah. He looked so forlorn and defeated, I don’t even know how to describe it. If I still have a heart, I think it broke for the poor man. This image has now been forever burned into my brain.
I was just in Taiwan not so long ago and thank God I came home safe and sound, which is much more than I can say for the people who are suffering there right now. I now finally understand how fragile life can be. I may not be as kind and friendly and nice as I always wanted to be, but I hope people will only have good things to say about me at my funeral. Made me think alot, which I usually do in the shower anyway but what I saw really hit me hard. Must be getting old, turning into a sentimental old fool.
Sigh, goodnight.
winglish. 